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It’s Okay If You Your Life Isn’t Like In Your Favorite Books

I recently read Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Random House; 2001). I just read the first book in the series (the one that became a movie) but I’m not sure I’m going to bother with the rest of the series. Although it was a good book, it’s kinda like science fiction to me. Four childhood friends sticking together through thick and thin? Not in my world.

I’ve noticed that a lot of books and movies feature ridiculously strong friendships. These friends do incredibly brave and unrealistic things like bailing each other out jail, putting up with each other’s tantrums and regularly staying in contact with each other.

In all of my 43 years, I’ve never had such a friend who wasn’t closely related to me (and therefore, didn’t have an option.) And there are things I would never talk about with my close relatives (because i don’t really have an option, either.) It can be a bit depressing for me to get lost in a book about a great friendship and realize that I have never experienced what these fictional characters have.

Quite frankly, once you become homeless (like myself) no one want to know you. I’ve had some “friends” from college contact me in the last 6 years since I became homed and once they heard that I used to be homeless I’d never hear from them again. Can’t say I entirely blame them. It’s a dangerous world out there. Who wants to let a potential crazy homeless person into his or her life?

So, if you don’t have a friendship like those portrayed in books, don’t worry about it. The stuff of great fiction doesn’t exactly work in real life.